


Ruby Turns Around

by Joanne_c



Category: Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town - Cake
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/pseuds/Joanne_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While there are a lot of things they lost, there are a lot of things they can still have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruby Turns Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oryx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/gifts).



I still remember waving to him as he went onto the plane. It seems so long ago, like another lifetime, not just a couple of years. I look in the mirror and I wonder if I have changed as much as he has, though my injuries, my scars, they’re the kind you can’t see.

I love him. Such simple words, such a simple truth. He can’t believe those words, that truth. He doesn’t believe I could love a man who can’t love me the way I deserve to be – those are his words. I think the time he said that was the only time we ever were completely honest about how we both feel.

He won’t let me be honest. Won’t let me say how I feel, or what I want. He lays there, staring up at the ceiling and he mutters about what he thinks I’m going to do. He thinks I go into town every night looking for a man to do what he can’t.

I don’t want another man. I may never want another man. I love him. I want him, the way he used to be, or even the way he is now, as long as he knows I love him and I need him just as much. He’s just never going to believe that and it’s not fair to either of us.

I sit here, painting my lips and wishing he’d never gone to that Asian war. Never agreed to fight for our country. But he would’ve thought he was a coward if he didn’t. I would, at first, too. But knowing how some of those boys came home, and even the ones who didn’t come home? Now I would make sure he didn’t go. He’s not even one of the worst off who are still… well, they call it living. I’m not sure it is.

 

It does frustrate me a little. He could have a life. He could contribute. He could be a husband. No, not like he used to be, that’s something that won’t ever be possible again, and if I’m honest? I do miss him being a husband in that way. But that doesn’t mean any other man can be that to me. So he’s stewing in his thoughts and feelings about something I’m not even doing. Something I don’t want to do.

He thinks I want sex. I don’t. I want the man who used to talk to me. Who used to read to me. Who used to make me smile when he’d smile. I miss that man. I miss my husband. He could do so many things. He was always good with his hands. He only lost feeling below the waist. He’s strong as can be in his arms and shoulders – I guess it’s because when he was in the hospital, he was made to do therapy, but now he’s home? He just refuses to go to the doctor and doesn’t let me bring him here.

So what do I do? Sit here and wait for him to die? He’s not dying – well, no more than any of us are. He is likely to die sooner, it’s something to do with his injuries, but he could have another fifty years if he would only do what he can.

I’m not going to sit and watch that. I don’t care if it makes me callous. He’s the one who made me that way.

I just don’t want to sit around and wait for him to waste away. I feel like he will do that. So I go out. I don’t go looking for me. I go where there are people. Where I can talk to couples, remember for a few minutes, or even a few hours, what it used to be like. Smile at friends. Remember when I was the pretty young bride, who could only think of her husband.

I guess I still am in some ways. I want to be with him. I want us to have something. I want to be able to kiss him and have him kiss me back. If that’s all we can have? It’s enough. He doesn’t get that. He will never get that. He feels he needs to give me more. I can’t make him listen to me. I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. I’ve talked to him, even. Said all I have to say. What did he do? He didn’t listen. I don’t know how he didn’t hear – I don’t know if he did hear and just said he didn’t, because honest to God that would make more sense to me. But nevertheless, he tells me he didn’t hear, and he didn’t know what I was talking about when I brought it up again. I just let it drop. Wasn’t much elese I could do when he wouldn’t listen.

There’s no one out on the town who I even think of as a replacement for him. Yes, I dance and smile at men. But they know that’s all it will ever be, and if I thought they wanted something else? I’d run a mile. Just wouldn’t be interested, and they know it. The one time one did get the wrong idea, Susan’s husband set him straight. I didn’t like having to rely on another man, but it was better than leading him on.

I look in on him before I go. He knows I’m going out. He wants me to stay. I turn to go, unable to take his words again.

“Turn around,” he says to me, softly.

For a second? I consider not doing it. I consider just going through the motions again, the smiling, the dancing, the one glass of wine. But I can’t. I can’t not turn around.

“Maybe it’s time we talk,” he says.

I’m not going to deny there’s a little anger in me. Why did he have to wait so long, until it was almost too late? But then the words register. He wants to talk. He wants us to talk.

I don’t know if this will lead to all I want. I don’t know if it will lead anywhere. But there’s only one thing I can do.

I put my purse on the hall stand, where it goes unless I’m going out. I ease my feet out of my shoes. I let my hair fall down from the tight curls. Then I walk into his room.

It may not be all it can be, but I can only do all I can to make sure we have the chance to make things work for as long as we have.


End file.
